The present invention relates in general to an annealing apparatus, and more particularly, to an annealing apparatus operative to provide an open and non-pressure differential environment for continuously perform annealing on a process material such as a heat pipe without oxidizing and affecting the luster of the process material.
The conventional thermal process of a heat pipe includes a step of annealing. To avoid oxidizing the heat ppe and to provide a clean process, the annealing process is normally performed in a vacuum furnace.
The conventional annealing process performed in a vacuum furnace requires a specific number of heat pipe materials disposed in a vacuum furnace. The vacuum furnace is then closed, vacuumed and heated to perform the annealing process. After the annealing process, the heat pipe materials are removed for subsequent process, and a new batch of heat pipe materials is disposed in the vacuum furnace for annealing.
Therefore, only a limited number of heatpipes can be annealed each time. The remaining heat pipes have to wait until the annealing process performed on the previous batch is complete and removed from the vacuum furnace, and the vacuum furnace is reopen and set up again. The conventional batch-by-batch process is thus very time consuming. Further, as the furnace is heated under an airtight vacuum status. Careless or inadvertent operation may cause serious injury or damage.